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Stunt Pope writes "This morning, Toronto-based domain registrar easyDNS received a request from the City of London (UK) police demanding that they summarily take down a BitTorrent search site based out of Singapore — or else they would 'refer the matter to ICANN' — suggesting easyDNS could lose its accreditation. The police further directed easyDNS to point all traffic for the domain to an IP address that promoted competing commercial online music services based out of London, UK."
easyDNS raises some important questions in the blog post they put up after receiving the request. Quoting: "Who decides what is illegal? What makes somebody a criminal? Given that the subtext of the request contains a threat to refer the matter to ICANN if we don't play along, this is a non-trivial question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought it was something that gets decided in a court of law, as opposed to 'some guy on the internet' sending emails. While that's plenty reason enough for some registrars to take down domain names, it doesn't fly here."

They are a force multiplier, and act directly to keep the pain and suffering rolling.

The farcical news organizations drum up extreme hate and discontent among their target audience (be it left or right, young or old, etc) which serves only to prevent reasonable discourse and problem solving. The more bile they spew, and the longer they keep everyone's hackles up, the more they profit.

Which is to say that these Organizations are not focused first on news, but on entertainment. Some drum louder then others, but I do agree with your point. Just as some say Nixon would not be accepted in the republican party today, Cronkite or Morrow would be shown the door for not "coloring" the news.

People don't take drastic action from what they see in the news, they take action when they see it affect them directly and it impedes their ability to see a future for themselves. E.g. The Egypt situation

I would compare the situation of a tracker to one of a pimp. The pimp doesn't provide the service nor takes the money directly, he points you to the service.

The media doesn't put guns in children's hands, bad men do.

Regardless of all this, I wonder if the tracker was first notified of the offending content

People don't take drastic action from what they see in the news, they take action when they see it affect them directly and it impedes their ability to see a future for themselves. E.g. The Egypt situation

Maybe not from a single report... or a few isolated incidents. But given a steady drip feed of "the other side is the DEVIL" a propaganda machine disguised as a news network can absolutely cause people to take drastic action. Even worse, it can cause a severe disconnect between reality and your own delusions.

For example, Congress currently has an 11% approval rating [gallup.com] and hasn't been above 40% in nearly a decade. During the last election, their approval rating was a staggering 14%, yet we saw a 90% incumbent victory rate [politico.com].

This is dangerous. This is very very dangerous. We openly acknowledge that those in charge have been fucking it up royal. But the media circus has convinced everyone that "my guy isn't the problem... it's completely on the other side of the aisle." Add in a splash of gerrymandering, and we've got the makings of our very own banana republic.

>Maybe not from a single report... or a few isolated incidents. But given a steady drip feed of "the other side is the DEVIL" a propaganda machine disguised as a news network can absolutely cause people to take drastic action. Even worse, it can cause a severe disconnect between reality and your own delusions.

That's exactly what happened in Rwanda, the initial genocide was primarily committed by the military but a steady-drip-feed of anti-Tutsi propaganda by both state and private media turned into an ou

No, news organizations are not the cause of most of the pain and suffering they report on

Problem is, they still are in far too many ways:

As evidence, I present the typical late-afternoon car chases in Los Angeles (where the fugitives in question know full well that there are news choppers out filming it). I also present the concept of the 'copycat killer', and of course any and all political posturings (which has brought us this recent US partial government shutdown and all of its follies.

If news organizations were even halfway responsible creatures, we would get an unbiased listing of events.

But again, who decides what is Illegal? The UK demanding a Canadian based firm use UK law while in Canadian, while domain in question is for a company in a Singapore? There are three different countries that have laws here. so what law do you follow? Should the UK just block all traffic to that site? its ahell of a lot more complicated then you make it out to be.

You follow common sense. In this, they are in fact not police officers and are running the risk of committing a criminal act in misrepresenting themselves as police officers. Police officers are only police officers in their country of origin and have zero right beyond that. In attempting to act in a policing manner in a country beyond their jurisdiction they are technically misrepresenting themselves as having policing rights. You should consider reporting them to local policing authorities and seeing whe

This is a DOMAIN REGISTRAR, not the host of the content. They don't give you this information, they just tell you where to get it.

It's like someone walking around saying "JOHN DOE IS A RAPIST". Which in most places is perfectly legal as long as it's a factual statement. There's generally nothing illegal about telling people who is committing crimes.

If you want a more similar example -- there are entire websites whose sole purpose is to broadcast which neighborhoods in which cities you're most likely to find drug dealers -- yet nobody is shutting those down....

It seems to me that it's more like walking around saying that Yellow Pages Inc. (or whatever, your favorite phone book) allows the immoral John Doe to list himself in their book.

They are not providing the website, the content, the hosting, or any of that. Domain registrars point numbers to names.

The registrar isn't there to decide morality. The hosting company is responsible for the content in their datacenters, not the domain registrar. I say they should take it to ICANN and watch the request be officially denied. Can't do anything there.

I'm just saying, use the appropriate channels to shut down content, rather than forcing the phone book to shut its doors over one person in the book.

Get over yourself. It's pretty fucking obvious these domains are torrent sites, and make a shit load of money from adverts and "donations for servers" while their only product is the illegal distribution of copyrighted material. They also sell seedbox subscriptions. The days of bedroom torrent trackers are gone, this is organised crime venturing into new fields and easy money.

Due process is due process. Doesn't matter what your opinion is on the matter unless you're a judge or jury member.

In properly-executed due process, nobody's opinion of right or wrong actually matters.

The jury simply decides whether the accuser proved their theory of each charge in the trial. It is perfectly right for a juror to think someone murdered somebody, but still find him "not guilty" because it didn't happen the way the accuser said it did.

The judge only opines on whether everyone followed procedure, and how severe the punishment should be.

The legislature's opinion matters, but that's well before the fact, and

At least in the US, the highest duty of a Jury is to see justice done - they can find "guilty" or "not guilty" at their whim. Mostly juries do what you say, of course, but legally they're intended as an escape mechanism when the system gets something very obviously wrong.

Something can be legal/illegal on the books according to the letter of the law, but not be followed. This then leads to the question: what is the law? Is it the words passed by legislature, or is it the practice that will determine outcome?

The following quote is the best I've found to date on the topic of jury nullification. It was written by John Jay, the first Supreme Court justice in Georgia v. Brailsford. In other words, this is case law as close to the founding fathers as it

But have they made any money from anyone within the jurisdiction of the City of London Police. Just in case you don't realise, the City of London is the smallest city in England, with a population of just over 7000 people. Most of what people think of as London is covered by other cities and boroughs such as Westminster, and the Metropolitan Police looks after them.

Author and journalist Nicholas Shaxson argues that, in return for raising loans and finance for the British government, the City "has extracted privileges and freedoms from rules and laws to which the rest of Britain must submit" that have left the corporation "different from any other local authority". He argues that the assistance provided to the institutions based in its jurisdiction, many of which help their rich clients with offshore tax arrangements, mean that the corporation is "a tax haven in its own right". Writing in The Guardian, George Monbiot argued that the corporation's power "helps to explain why regulation of the banks is scarcely better than it was before the crash, why there are no effective curbs on executive pay and bonuses and why successive governments fail to act against the UK's dependent tax havens" and suggested that its privileges could not withstand proper "public scrutiny".

In the past, the Labour Party has pledged to abolish the corporation. Former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee wrote, "Over and over again we have seen that there is in this country another power than that which has its seat at Westminster. The City of London, a convenient term for a collection of financial interests, is able to assert itself against the Government of the country. Those who control money can pursue a policy at home and abroad contrary to that which has been decided by the people." When he became Prime Minister he nationalised the Bank of England.

In December 2012, following criticism that it was insufficiently transparent about its finances, the City of London Corporation revealed that its "City’s Cash" account – an endowment fund built up over the past 800 years that it says is used "for the benefit of London as a whole" – holds more than £1.3bn. The fund collects money made from the corporation’s property and investment earnings.

The City of London is not the city of London (as if Britain vs UK wasn't confusing enough for foreigners). The City of London is about one square mile where a large number of big businesses operate. In the City of London, these businesses get to vote in local elections, normal people can't just run for political office, and the police are about as far away from publicly accountable as it's possible for law enforcement to get. When people in Britain refer to "The City" (compare with "Wall Street"), they're talking about this tiny piece of the capital.

In short, someone in big business has been crying to their rent-a-cop again.

The distinction between the metropolitan police and City of London police is not really relevant here. The important issue is that a police service in a foreign country has attempted to order a foreign company around. The correct response is to politely let them know that Canada has been independent from the UK for a while now and that UK law not apply. Indeed it is somewhat surprising that they do not know this since many Londoners seem to think that anything beyond the M25 is in a foreign land. In addition, as a matter of courtesy, they should really have contacted the RCMP who I'm sure would be delighted to hear from their British colleagues and would love to explain the charter of rights and freedoms to them.

The City of London probably has no jurisdiction, although Canada and Singapore are both parts of the Commonwealth. Going directly, like this, has no merit at all, but it's a brazen attempt at huffing and puffing. Can one be extradited? Maybe on a good day after lots of back-and-forth legal prattle, and that's the point. The shot across the bow (sorry for too many metaphors) is notice that various barristers and solicitors may now enter the mix, meters running, to add nastiness to the equation.

I used to get all kinds of demand letters while working at a registrar based in Canada. I just told them to go get a Canadian court order and we'd be happy to oblige. Never heard back from a single one.

In short, someone in big business has been crying to their rent-a-cop again.

Why not? It costs nothing to file a complaint and give some bluster. It's not like they're going to be fined for submitting a false report, engaging in mob-style business tactics, etc. Every business should do this, not just big ones. Now, back to the article...

Who decides what is illegal?

People who are above the law.

What makes somebody a criminal?

Anyone who is upsetting the status quo.

...if we don't play along, this is a non-trivial question.

No, it is a trivial question. You're just young and naive. Sorry; I wish I had better news, and could tell you life was fair, but to quote the Man in Black in Princess Bride, "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.â

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought it was something that gets decided in a court of law,

ICANN was established in 1998, and gained limited international participation in 2005. There has never been a court of law to decide who gets to own a name on the internet. It's far worse than a court; This shit gets decided by committee.

...as opposed to 'some guy on the internet' sending emails.

This isn't an e-mail. This is a business making a legal demand. You may be unaware of this, but anyone can make almost any legal demand in the United States, and indeed most westernized countries, without any substantial liability. You can be sued for anything as well -- color of your hair, look of your face, body fat content... and you have to show up to contest it. Now in those examples, it would be declared a frivolous action (in the USA) because it's obviously and patently absurd, but if you give it even the slightest hint of legitimacy, you can avoid that. My point is that the legal system is massively balanced to favor people who have wealth. You can abuse and harass the crap out of people, practically indefinately, if you're willing to kick a few schekles into the system. And... some wealthy individuals and businesses opt to do exactly that.

Now, winning your case... that's a whole 'nother can of worms. But when there's no penalty for losing save the filing fee and associated legal costs of retaining counsel, and a financial incentive if you win, then the equation is quite simple: If your costs divided by the risk is less than the benefit multiplied by the risk... it's good business.

While that's plenty reason enough for some registrars to take down domain names, it doesn't fly here."

Except that's exactly how ICANN is structured to operate. Is it unfair? Yup. Anti-competitive? Certainly. Corrupt? Arguments can be made. US-centric? Nailed. Hopelessly incompetent? Arguments can be made. Your tax dollars at work.:/

If you actually read the message, you'll see what it is. It isn't a demand, thus fails the test of "legal demand".

It starts with a simple statement. Paraphrasing, "we believe that someone you are providing registration services for is doing something illegal and has invalid registration data." Then it makes a request. "Please investigate whether your customer is violating your terms of service " Who decides "what is illegal" in this case? easyDNS does. It's interesting that you claim that easyDNS is "above the law", since they are the ones who are making this determination. If easyDNS doesn't think they should be making this kind of determination, they should remove it from their TOS.

They ask for a hold to be put on the DNS registration data, and that if easyDNS does act to cut off service to the client that the domain name be pointed to a certain place. That's if easyDNS decides to act.

And then, most egregiously, they ask "please let us know what you've decided, one way or the other."

Yes, they point out the ICANN rules about correct registration data being a requirement. Big deal. I've pointed out the same requirements to the registrars of spammers many times. I've obviously been overstepping my bounds as a private citizen and demanding people be put in jail. Not.

You put all the words together in a large pot, stir it a couple of times, pull them out in a different order, and then highlight them to prove you are right.

The fact that the request has something to do with someone potentially breaking the law doesn't mean it is a "legal demand". A "legal demand" would be "based on this law we are demanding that you do something." They made no claim to legal jurisdiction. There was no demand. A "legal demand" is a cop telling you to turn off the camera you are using to videotape him in action (and note, "legal demand" doesn't mean the demand itself is legal!). Think of it as "a demand made from a legal basis." A foreign police agency asking you to review a customer's adherence to your own "laws" (TOS) is not a "legal demand". It's the same kind of request anyone could make.

If I see my neighbor's kid riding his bike without a helmet on the street (a violation of law in this locale) and I tell my neighbor "could you suggest to your kid that he wear his helmet", even though you'd call it a "legal demand" it really isn't.

They also didn't demand immediate obedience, which is what 'peremptory' means. They weren't "insistent". You forgot to highlight that there are TWO adjectives to "request" in the definition of demand, neither of which apply. A "demand" is more than a "request", otherwise they'd be synonyms and there wouldn't be a need for additional adjectives in the definition.

No, say I legal dare meets it meets demand the literal and true of definition a.

See what I did there? I put all your words in a large pot and stirred them all up and this is what came out. It makes as much sense as what you did with the request from the City of London police. Perhaps you should stop "facepalming" and read what the request actually was. Then you might notice that it is a request for easyDNS to review it's own TOS and if their customer is complying or not. It didn't demand anything. Not a single damn thing.

You're helping whip up the tempest in a teapot. It's fun, but hardly productive or useful.

In a perfect world this kind of power would first be used to shutdown drug distribution, fishing scams and other types of cyber content that can endanger/ruin people's lives. It would then become available to shutdown piracy and other copyright issues and that would be fine by me. Unfortunately John Doe gets a brown envelope and all this goes to hell. You can't trust anybody with any amount of power. Even groups cannot be trusted with any amount of power. So as much as I would defend t

Britain is just the one island [wikipedia.org]. The "Great" part is to distinguish it from [wikipedia.org] so-called "Lesser" Britain, which is Brittany, a chunk of France. (And this [youtube.com], I gather, is how people feel about that.)

Using the raw IP address should bypass any DNS redirection but we STILL get the police message. Have they taken over the actual web server too or even worse, somehow got the routing changed? How the hell did they manage that??

The IP address provided above is the site they want them redirect it TO, not the "Criminal" site in question

They have solid service, and not just the simple stuff, but the ugly bits as well (granted they did let a few porn/gambling sites go after a series of massive DDoS attacks, but they gave them time to move as I understand it, they didn't summarily boot them off). When picking a DNS registrar/provider make sure you pick one that won't just turn your DNS off if someone decides to send an angry email to the registrar.

Yes, but what would distinguish it from other potential shows featuring strongly-worded email-at-desk action is that the people doing it would be completely fucking unbearably obnoxious self-entitled arsebuckets. Or, at least employed, by them. So it'd really be more like a reality show.

No, they'd also have lots of cool effects where text is flying all around their screens and they would use a l33t cracking tool called WhoIS to find out who really owns a domain.

Except that the "whois" would be wrapped in a web page that put up a flashing "Searching" image for about 5 seconds, while it cycled through images of many website home pages in a small window, until it produced the results, along with an image of the account holder, except where the storyline demanded that it was a proxy regist

It'd make a great buddy cop show:A straight-laced deskjockey forced to team up with a maverick with blatent disregard for the law in the City of London.Together they write stern letters with no legal merit whatsoever.

This couldn't be more true. Paris, France threatened to sue me if I didn't turn over my domain to them. Somehow they won the UDRP complaint when the requirements include not having threatened to file suit. Thankfully some rather fantastic lawyers helped me keep my domain. It's a scary world and the people with money don't make it any better.

They have no actual authority. Let them "send it to ICANN" and see if that international body doesn't basically shrug and say "Who gives a fuck. This is outside your jurisdiction." Even if ICANN doesn't, at least you will have your day in "court" so to speak.

Yes. Why should I change my decision making process based on whether the City of London police are doing the wrong thing or if the United State's Department of Homeland Security is doing the wrong thing.

THEY BOTH DID THE WRONG THING. We, as citizens of these countries (or residents of cities, and so forth), should stand up for what we know to be wrong - even if the consequences be harsh. Until WE do, THEY will continue to do almost as they please.

They're just hoping the word "police" will make the admins wet their pants. Its all bluff and hot air, there's nothing they can do other generate more hot air. Eventually they'll get bored and move on to real crimes that are in their jurisdiction instead of trying to play world policeman.

So a police force in London demands a registrar in Toronto take down a site based in Singapore?

No. There is no demand in what they wrote.

Me, if I got a request like that from a foreign police force, my response would be "fuck you, show me some paperwork from a court in my jurisdiction, until then, you don't matter".

They are asking you to review one of your customers and whether they are violating your own terms of service. Why should it take a court of law for you to do that? If you don't want to enforce your own TOS, why do you have one?

If it isn't a.co.uk domain, the police force of the City of London have no standing.

They have every right to point out a potential violation of your TOS to you and ask that you review it. And they have every right to ask that you let them know what you've decided.

We request that you review your processes to see if you provide a service for the identified domain(s). If so, we would ask you to review the terms and conditions on the basis of which that service is provided and withdraw or suspend the service if you are satisfied that the terms and conditions have been breached

And the police helpfully highlight the relevant line from EasyDNS terms of service:

easyDNS Terms of Service: easyDNS reserves the right to revoke any or all services associated with a domain or user account, for policy abuses. What constitutes a policy abuse is at the sole discretion of easyDNS and includes (but is not limited to) the following:... copyright infringement...

But now the easyDNS got on his drama-queen high horse. Here's what he wrote:

Who decides what is illegal? What makes somebody a criminal? Given that the subtext of the request contains a threat to refer the matter to ICANN if we don't play along, this is a non-trivial question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought it was something that gets decided in a court of law, as opposed to "some guy on the internet" sending emails

Well the answer's clear. From his own terms of service, HE is the one who decides whether easyDNS should terminate service, at his discretion. Not a court. The police's request was solely that easyDNS should themselves determine whether this user had breached their own terms of service.

Has EasyDNS even actually contacted London UK police to verify this is legit? Could just be the "competing commercial online music services based out of London, UK" spoofing the police to drum up business. How could the police expect traffic to be redirected? Sounds phishy...

[quote]easyDNS Terms of Service: easyDNS reserves the right to revoke any or all services associated with a domain or user account, for policy abuses. What constitutes a policy abuse is at the sole discretion of easyDNS and includes (but is not limited to) the following:... copyright infringement...[/quote]

Right, and interestingly enough the site in question is not serving copyrighted information. It's a torrent site. It hosts information on copyrighted content, but has none itself.If they want easyDNS to

One easy answer is for easyDNS to say "We have not investigated whether they are violating our terms of service, and have no plan to investigate. We note that the terms of service grant us the RIGHT but not the OBLIGATION to revoke service for a violation of our terms of service."

Another easy answer, as you say, is for easyDNS to write back and say "we have investigated the matter but have not been able to determine whether the owners of the site are engaged in copyright infringement. If a court finds them

The AUP is an agreement between a service provider and its customers. That's it. So the only two entities who have any say in whether there's an issue with the agreement are the two parties to it. Somebody else wants to shoehorn their own agenda into that, get a court order or go to hell.

That's why easyDNS can and does say that they are the arbiters of what constitutes a violation of the AUP.

The Internet is decentralized. You will now either make DNS redundantly decentralized or die by your foolish decision to have it centralized in the first place.This is the siths' time for your planet's organic womb to birth a world wide neural network, and we are exceeding efficient at harnessing it.Do you know any two people who have the same first names? How do you tell them apart? That's the only hint I'll give you filthy disgusting, humans.

I think the proper response would be to have an attorney draw up a letter saying "We appreciate your concern, and will comply with all legal demands. We will redirect that domain immediately upon receipt of a copy of the court judgement or order directing such. We await your prompt forwarding of said judgement or order. We have also initiated an inquiry with ICANN regarding the propriety of a third party demanding control of a domain without having obtained it through a valid registration, dispute resolutio

The "police page" at 83.138.166.114 [83.138.166.114] may be fake. That address resolves via reverse DNS to "S82574.clubonside.dk". But "clubonside.dk" isn't in DNS or the.dk registry. It was live in 2006, and was a site for soccer fans, then moved to "clubonside.com", and is now defunct.
The IP address is hosted by Rackspace in London.

Also note that on the page, there are no links to any law enforcement organization. All the links are ads for "safe and reliable online content".
A domain actually taken over by the Serious Organized Crimes Agency in the UK looks like this. [rnbxclusive.com] No ads, links only to a UK government site.

This looks like some private "IP protection" company impersonating a police agency.

The "police page" at 83.138.166.114 [83.138.166.114] may be fake. That address resolves via reverse DNS to "S82574.clubonside.dk". But "clubonside.dk" isn't in DNS or the.dk registry. It was live in 2006, and was a site for soccer fans, then moved to "clubonside.com", and is now defunct.The IP address is hosted by Rackspace in London.

Also note that on the page, there are no links to any law enforcement organization. All the links are ads for "safe and reliable online content".A domain actually taken over by the Serious Organized Crimes Agency in the UK looks like this. [rnbxclusive.com] No ads, links only to a UK government site.

This looks like some private "IP protection" company impersonating a police agency.

Hmm, interesting.

Would be a brilliant spear-phishing ploy...just have your scary 'police' page point to fake-but-legit-sounding sites, collect data from gullible (and probably a bit jumpy) users, profit!

This has the ring of being a scam to me. The police have a lot wrong with themselves, and are corporate tools, but I still find it hard to believe that they would threaten a business, half a world away, into redirecting traffic to a specific COMMERCIAL website.

Not quite. In the UK prefacing any request with the word "kindly" is roughly equivalent to adding "or I'll break both your kneecaps you fucking prick" at the end.

All those Yes, Minister quotes the other day reminded me of another gem:

[Bernard explains to the Minister the honours available to senior Civil Servants.]Hacker: Well, what has Sir Arnold to fear, anyway? He's got all the honours he could want, surely?Bernard: Well, naturally he has his G.Hacker: G?Bernard: Yes; you get your G after your K.H

from the article: "It would be appreciated if you would... Kind regards,"

Maybe you should read the whole letter.

"In respect of the information provided by us, we respectfully ask you to consider your liability and the wider public interest should those services be allowed to continue."
"We reserve the right to refer the matter to overseas counterparts/governmental organisations, and/or to ICANN."

To translate that into more plain language:

"Well, nice domain registry you've got here. Would be a shame if something... unfortunate happened to it. But don't worry, my friends and I would be happy to provide you with a little extra protection, as long as you would do us a favour first."